Grandma scares Avery

In February 2005, I was forwarded a maze game. This was "The Scary Maze Game." If you google this, you'll see several links. There are also numerous videos where you can watch people's reactions as they try and solve the maze. As they press their face close to the screen, an image of Linda Blair from "The Exorcist" pops up with a horrific scream.

I later forwarded the maze game on to friends and family.

What was funny was the reaction I received as many friends fell for the game. I was called a few names actually as it scared the crap out of a couple friends.

My mom forwarded it to my sister in Florida.

Stacy was maneuvering the mazes with ease until she got to the third screen. When the image came up and the scream occurred, she heard a second scream as Avery was standing next to her.

Avery was three at the time and Stacy had no idea she was standing there. Stacy tried to calm her down as she screamed in horror at the image. When she calmed Avery down. She was quiet for a few moments and then stared screaming again without needing to see the image again.

Stacy calmed her down again and Avery was fine for a few moments and she began screaming again.

Finally, Stacy called mom and told Avery that it was grandma that scared her!

Avery chastised grandma telling her it was not nice to scare her and it hurt her feelings and she should never do it again.

Mom was trying not to laugh as was my sister, but to hear Stacy tell the story, it was all she could do not to laugh as Avery was randomly screaming for no reason after the initial scare.

Madison 1 Grandma 0

Mom was talking with Madison (about age 4) on the phone one day when Madison began a game she often played with grandma. They had played this game many times in the past.

"My grandpa owns a farm.  On that farm he has an animal.  The animal is white, yellow and orange."

They had played it enough that when Madison said "White" mom knew it was a dog. When Madison said "White and brown," mom knew it was a cow. When she said "Pink," it was a pig.

Mom barely let her get the colors out when she pounced on the question with the answer "A DUCK!"

Madison was momentarily quiet before she asked, "But how big is the duck grandma?" She was a little mad, I think, that grandma got it so quickly.

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked.

"How big is the duck grandma?"

"I don't know? What does it matter?"

"How big is the duck grandma?"

"I don't know. Two pounds?"

Madison huffed loudly as grandma was now wrong and she won. "Hmph - No! It's as big as all the other ducks."

Grandma and Stacy had it coming from that point going forward after teasing her so much as a toddler, she was developing her own teasing skills now.

Madison 1 Grandma 0

Juan Williams - fired from NPR

Juan Williams was fired today for comments he made on Fox News on The O'Reilly Factor.



What I find not surprising is how folks on both sides of the political spectrum have rushed to denounce NPR's actions.  Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly just a week ago were the biggest internet sensation with Bill's visit to The View are now in agreement that what NPR did was wrong.

The only group I have found that does not seem to be bothered by NPR's action is CAIR.  CAIR stands for Counsel for American-Islamic Relations.  They called for something to be done regarding his comments and NPR bent over backwards to please them in my opinion.  CAIR said in their released statement, "Such irresponsible and inflammatory comments would not be tolerated if they targeted any other racial, ethnic or religious minority, and they should not pass without action by NPR."

I personally wonder if they have ever released a statement that Muslims beheading people and showing it over the internet is inflammatory.

NPR handled this poorly on another level by doing the deed by phone.  They never brought Juan in to speak face to face and simply released a statement of his termination after notifying him by phone.

Because some of their funding comes from the federal government, this may become a fascinating legal case to determine if this constitutes censorship of the media.

I think it was definitely an overreaction by NPR.  I think they may even reverse their position considering the backlash that is coming from the rest of the media.  I don't think Juan will be unemployed long however.  When I have seen him, I have not agreed with all his views, but he's been a professional on TV and his integrity has him held in high regard by both the left and right leaning media sources.

This is going to hurt NPR a lot more in the long run than it will hurt Mr. Williams.

Halloween 2008

The past two years, I went over to Lyle and Chandra's on Halloween Night.  Sadly, the tradition will not continue this year since I have relocated to Kentucky, but I did come across an old email telling of the evening.

***

It was another fun Halloween giving out candy last night.  Of note, I upset a little girl who was dressed as a clown. I was telling her I didn't like clowns and she thought I didn't like her. She went and told her grandma on me. I explained to grandma, it was clowns I didn't like. She replied, "Oh, you're one of them (clown hater.)" I thought, WTF? Is grandma some sort of clown lover to refer to me that way?

This years Halloween was different for me. Instead of handing out candy at my house, I went to Lyle and Chandra's and handed my candy out there with them. There was bloody punch available made by Tina, chili, hotdogs and brats. Oh, and beer. We had plenty of beer.

Tina was making the blood punch and as she opened up the club soda, It sprayed all over her shirt. I told her a little club soda could get that out.

There were a ton of kids on their street. I had 263 last year. This year, there had to be 500. A lot of ninja turtles, a couple Scobby Doos, about 7 clowns and several girls dressed as Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz." No real standouts though as the flow of kids was a lot and I could not make detailed notes.

I gave out suckers to the kids (along with a couple extra for the moms walking the kids around.) The problem was that with so many kids, there would be multiple parents and I didn't know if some of them were the dads
with the moms although I did get a look from one mom though and I had not even given an extra sucker. Our eyes met a couple times as she stood there as I handed out candy to a horde of kids and as she walked away, she turned back around to me and said, "Happy Halloween." I replied the wishes back and she was off into the night.

I'm glad it was a warm night compared to days earlier this week. It was fun.

Islam by the Numbers

Why I wrote this

I was called an Islamaphobe by a good friend on a social network because I do not buy into the media's portrayal of Muslims. I really have given this a lot of thought.

My background

Firstly, I am against all organized religion. I am a Catholic by birth and have never been to church voluntarily. I believe all religion serves three purposes:

1. To control people. Behave or you will go to Hell! You must give money to the church!

2. To give comfort to people when things cannot be explained, such as when a baby dies. Everyone says, he is in a better place because there has to be a reason for when something this tragic happens.

3. To explain things we cannot explain. When the sun rose in Egypt, they had a sun god responsible for that. When the moon rose, they had a moon god for that. When it rained, guess what, it's another god.

It's not like I am singling them out as a religion because I hold a bias against all religions.


I don't know that I hate them as a group, but I do not support or defend them and their beliefs any more. I did defend them for a while until the final straw of RevolutionMuslim.Com making overt threats to Matt Stone and Trey Parker after episodes of South Park that never showed a character of Mohammed, but only insinuated that he was in a bear suit.

On the post was the following quote:

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."

I can only guess that this example was similar to the warning of a horse's head in the bed in the movie "The Godfather." It was simply a message. What a peaceful message to send.

Hate versus Fear

I am not scared of Islam as phobe might indicate. Phobia is from the Greek and means fear. Liberals like to paint someone like myself as basing my stance against anything I am not open to as fear and ignorance and thus they slap the predicate phobe onto a word and this simply wrong.

Liberals like to equate hate to fear, but this is not necessarily a true statement.

I hate smokers. I hate being around smokers. I hate my clothes stinking from their smoke. Does this make me scared of smoke as a "phobia" would lead me to believe.

"KNOCK-KNOCK"

"Who's there?"

"A smoker."

"AAHHHHHH!!!!!! Run for your life! Oh my God! Oh my God! I am so scared!"

You may think I am being silly, but watch how people react to snakes, spiders, clowns, heights, etc. That's true fear. It's not always rational.

Technically, looking at the definition, today's liberal would say “yes” because someone has changed the definition of phobia to mean a fear or intense hatred.

It's the stupidest bleeping thing I have ever read when I looked up the word capnophobia. The definition is inclusive with "hatred" despite the Greek root only meaning fear. That's what the Greek prefix mis means in a word such as misanthrope.

I am not a capnaphobic, I am a miscapnic.

And unlike someone who has an irrational fear, I can rationalize with valid data why why I consider Islam dangerous.

Islam by the numbers

For my numbers, I do make one basic assumption. Anyone who supports violent Jihad is not a fan of America. If you can prove otherwise, then do so.

I found a website that estimates 1.57 Billion Muslims in the world. It is the second largest religion in the world and growing.

According to a Reuters article in 2006, the population of Indonesia is 220 million people.

85% of the people are Muslim. 10% of the Muslims back violent Jihad. That means in Indonesia alone, 18.7 Million people agree with violent Jihad. (220 Million x 85% x 10%)

Does that number sound like a small, fringe element to you in regular numbers?

This one country has as many Muslims believing in violent jihad as the entire population of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Columbus Ohio. I found the data chart for city populations here.

It would be statistically invalid because of the sampling to use the 10.0% in Indonesia supporting Jihad towards the 1.57 Billion Muslims in the world. It's simply not a valid sample, however, let's look at other regions and see if we can extrapolate some numbers that disprove Indonesia as being an extreme number.

This website estimates the Muslim population across regions.

	Muslim population (Millions)
North America	7.26
South America	2.41
Asia	1100.00
Europe	51.46
Africa	462.00

Europe

The following information was pulled from PewGlobal.org and it is used to calculate the number of Muslims in Europe that support suicide bombings in a Jihad. The sample is asked only of Muslims. The percentage reflects the percentage of Muslims who feel suicide bombings are either often or sometimes justified to defend Islam.

These 4 countries represent over 20% of European Muslims.

	Percentage say often or sometimes is justified	Muslim Population of the country (Millions)	Product of the two columns (Millions)
French Mulims	16.00%	6.12	0.98
Spanish Muslims	16.00%	0.55	0.09
British Muslims	15.00%	1.51	0.23
German Muslims	7.00%	3.05	0.21
	Total	11.23	1.51
Total European Mulim Population		51.46
European Muslim population in these four countries		21.82%

1.51 Million Muslims that support Jihad in these 4 countries.

11.23 Million Muslims in these 4 countries

This equals 13% of Muslims in these 4 countries that represent over 20% of the entire Muslim population in Europe that support suicide bombings. That's a higher percentage than in Indonesia!

For all of Europe I will extrapolate that 13% of European Muslims feel that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified to defend Islam.

51.46 Million Muslims x 13% = 6.69 Million more Muslims that feel it is OK for attacks to occur in defense of Islam.

North America

7% of Muslims in America say violence is sometimes or often justified.

That's 1 out of 14. I don't know if I would consider that a small fringe group supporting bombings. That's 510,000 Muslims in America that feel violence is sometimes or often justified to defend Islam. That more than the entire population of Kansas City, MO, our 35^th most populous city.

I came up with the percentage from the article as follows:

"While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely."

80% + 13% = 93%.

Asia

The following chart was derived from here.

	Percentage say often or sometimes is justified	Muslim Population of the country (Millions)	Product of the two columns (Millions)
Lebanon	34.00%	2.33	0.79
Palestine Terr.	70.00%	3.82	2.67
Malaysia	26.00%	15.40	4.00
Kuwait	21.00%	2.70	0.57
Bangladesh	20.00%	0.55	0.11
Pakistan	9.00%	1.51	0.14
Turkey	16.00%	73.55	11.77
Jordan	23.00%	5.26	1.21
	Total	105.12	21.26

So out of 105 Million Muslims in these Asian countries, 21.26 Million feel suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified.

That's a percentage of 20.24%. That seems larger than a fringe element supporting the actions of suicide bombers. Again, it makes the Indonesia percentage seem small.

For the sake of erring on the side of caution, should perhaps I should extrapolate the number of Asian Muslims from all the other countries at 10%?

Is it safe to just use 10% considering the size of Indonesia and the fact it is a very low percentage?

I will go one better and just use the 9 percent representing Pakistan knowing that it is shorting 800,000 known Indonesians that are Muslim and support violence to defend Islam.

Total Asian Muslim Population is 1.1 Billion.

1.1 Billion x 9% = 99 Million Muslims that sometimes or often feel suicide bombing to defend Islam are justified.

Africa

Africa data was pulled from the same source.

	Percentage say often or sometimes is justified	Muslim Population of the country (Millions)	Product of the two columns (Millions)
Ethiopia	18.00%	37.40	6.73
Ghana	30.00%	6.78	2.03
Ivory Coast	30.00%	11.82	3.55
Mali	39.00%	12.51	4.88
Nigeria	34.00%	65.25	22.19
Senegal	18.00%	11.19	2.01
Tanzia	12.00%	18.95	2.27
Uganda	30.00%	4.43	1.33
	Total	168.33	44.99

So 44.99 Million Muslims out of 168.33 Muslims in Africa think bombings are sometimes or often justified to defend Islam.

That is 26.7% for these 8 countries. I thought the 10% in Indonesia was high. Wow.

There are 462 Million Muslims in Africa.

462 Million x 26.7% = 123.35 Million Muslims.

Conclusion

	Muslim population (Millions)	Percentage that support suicide bombings	Total raw number (Millions)
North America	7.26	7.00%	0.51
South America	2.41	Not significant	Not significant
Asia	1100.00	9.00%	99.00
Europe	51.46	13.00%	6.69
Africa	462.00	26.70%	123.35
Totals	1623.13		229.55
Total percentage	14.14%

We have calculated that 14.14% of Muslims in the world feel that bombings are sometimes or often justified in defense of Islam. We are talking over 229 million Muslims across the world that support this method of defense. This is the number of people who support bombings occasionally or often. This is not the number of terrorists in the world. It's akin to the 330 Million Americans that support ourr troops. We are not all killing for our country, but we are supporting our troops and their mission.

By comparison, the top 50 most populous cities in America adds up to only 48.1 Million.

I did not collect data on South America. we were talking on 2.1 Million Muslims there and something tells me that small of a group out of 1.57 Billion would not significantly change any conclusions that can be made from the data.

My conclusion

Is 14.14% a "fringe element?" That's 1 in 7 Muslims that support these bombings across the world either occasionally or often. And it doesn't even include the Muslims who feel that violence is justified only on rare occasions.

I personally consider something much less than 1% fringe. I think number contradicts that it's only a fringe element supporting the bombings. I think anyone who says Muslims are really peaceful and only a fringe element is supporting terrorism has his/her head in the sand. The data does not support that position.

Does my distrust of them as a religion make me an Islamophobe? No. I distrust all religions, but I do not single out Islam and shudder in fear.

Is Islam a religion of peace? Not in my opinion. While that the data does show a majority of them are peaceful, it is most definitely not just a fringe element supporting the terrorists. My definition of fringe element is much smaller than 1 in 7.

A little bit pregnant

Several years ago I was working at a company called Sarcom.  It was an IS department with an application development team of three and a pool of contractors/consultants.  All the consultants were grouped in a small room with ten cubes.

Our client site manager was named Nancy Snider.  She was a terrific manager and just a fun person to talk with because she had a great sense of humor.

Nancy was very tiny person.  She weighed maybe ninety pounds soaking wet before she was pregnant and, so when she was seven or eight months pregnant, she looked huge as a result even though she had gained maybe ten pounds.

One day she was in our small room chatting with Doug Smith.  Doug was a person who's laughter and voice would fill a room.  I was in the next cube programming away as he and Nancy were casually talking for several minutes.  Doug steered the conversation to the child Nancy was carrying.

"Have you come up with any names yet?" he asked her.

"Well, if it's a boy, we are going to call him ..." I don't remember what the boy's name was, but she did go into detail why they were going to name whatever that name was.  She had a girl anyhow.

"... and if it's a girl, we are going with Aubrey," she told him.

Doug asked her, "Have you considered the name Bryon Jordan Snider?"  A couple people in the room chuckled; perhaps Stacey and George.  I think Holly and a couple others were in there around that time as well.

Upon hearing it, I stopped typing and pushed myself backwards out of the cube to their conversation.  The cubes were so small, I could not back away from the desk and get up unless I pushed all the way out.

I didn't even look at Nancy and said in a total dead panned voice to Doug, "What?  Name it after the father?"

In pretty much any company this would likely be sexual harassment and I am simply glad Nancy took it in the humorous vein it was meant to be as the entire room including Nancy burst out laughing.  And it was a long laugh and a loud laugh for everyone in that room.

Nancy was standing there laughing, but she finally got out, "Oh my God you guys are so rude!"  And she continued to laugh after that as well.

At least I think it set the tone though that Nancy knew I was simply a harmless smart aleck going forward, but I never pushed the envelope that far again.